Saving Beth: The Real Ending
by YuukiFairy
Summary: How the Walking Dead season final SHOULD have ended.
1. Chapter 1

Beth turned slowly. "What did you say?"

"Noah stays here," Dawn repeated.

"Slavery ended a long time ago," Beth said quietly as she held the other woman's gaze.

Dawn had no intention of letting this slip of a girl make her look weak in front of the others. "Those are my terms. The agreement was two for two," Dawn reminded them. "Not two for three."

"This isn't about fairness," Beth countered. "It never was. Just like any other abuser, you'll do anything you have to in order to keep from losing control."

Something dangerous flared in Dawn's eyes. Noah hesitated. He had tasted freedom and it had been sweeter than he could have imagined. He couldn't bear the thought of being shut up in a virtual cage again. On the other hand, he didn't know how far Dawn would go to keep him from leaving.

Rick froze as he realized he had killed one of their bargaining chips. The situation was going downhill fast. He tried bluffing his way through it. "You don't want a blood bath, but if anyone opens fire, that's just what it's going to be."

Dawn eyed the new group carefully, sizing them up. They looked powerful, determined and ready to stand their ground. She knew they'd been outside surviving in extreme situations on a daily basis while her own people had mostly been isolated from all that.

"He can't go back," Beth told the others. "They'll punish him. Living here is like a prison sentence with daily beatings, rapes and forced labor. They expect people to be grateful for that. And if anyone tries to leave, they hunt them down like animals."

Dawn glared back at Beth. "I should have never taken you in. I should never have saved your life."

"You mean you should never have hit me with that car in the first place. That's what you do, isn't it? You run people down on purpose and break their bodies so that they're easier to handle. Are you really that afraid that you have to use brutality to make people feel helpless and at your mercy? You think that's respect, but it's not."

Rick spoke up. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Either way, Noah goes with us."

While Rick stood waiting, Daryl stepped forward and put his body between Beth and Dawn. "You even think about drawing that gun and you'll be the first to die. I promise you that."

Dawn wavered. There was something in this man's glacial eyes that told her he wouldn't hesitate to carry out his threat. He stood over her, rock solid, an immoveable force.

"You had better think twice before threatening me," she tried warning him.

He leaned in closer to her. His voice was deep and throaty. "That wasn't a threat and you damn well know it."

Something new flickered in her eyes. Fear.

"Let 'em go, Dawn," she heard behind her. "It's not worth it."

Something in her fought against giving in to the man before her. She had killed men before. She wanted to kill this one. She could not bear the thought of him getting the better of her. Deep inside she felt that she was nothing if she lost control. Even the slightest loss could cause it all to crumble. If she lost her position, then she lost everything. If she showed any weakness at all, the others would tear her to shreds like a pack of wild hyenas. Her hand moved with lightning speed, but Daryl was faster.

Her attempt to draw her gun failed. Daryl's hand shot out and closed around her wrist, gripping it so tightly that she uttered an involuntary little cry, knew from that very moment that she had lost everything.

She looked up, saw the look in Daryl's eyes and knew real fear. "If you keep fighting me, this is just going to end badly for you," Daryl gritted under his breath.

Without looking at them, Daryl said over his shoulder, "Beth, take Carol and get out of here. Noah, you go with them."

Daryl turned back, and, with a lethal edge to his voice, said, "You want them back, you'll have to fight us for them."

Beth took a moment to look back. Even after they reached the door, there was no one going to Dawn's aid. There was no one giving chase. No one who even looked like they would try to stop them.

With their weapons still trained on the group at the other end of the hallway, Daryl and the others backed down the corridor towards the exit door.

"Anyone steps outside this door, we'll shoot to kill," Daryl called out.

"Beth."

Daryl's voice halted her.

He stepped closer and stood over her, looking down.

"I didn't know if you were alive or dead," she said softly.

"You think I'd die before seeing you again?"

His hand lifted and traced her cheek lightly, lovingly, carefully avoiding the stitches. "What'd they do to you?"

"I'm all right," she answered. "Now."

He closed his hand over the smaller one that lay on his chest, the one that gently curved right over his heart.

"You didn't think you were through with me yet, did you?" he said huskily.

She answered him with a smile. The same one that he had seen in his dreams. The same smile that was all sunshine and hope and promise, the one that had kept shining, even when they were apart, straight through the darkness that had shadowed his life for so long.

"I didn't give up looking for you." He wanted her to know that.

"And I kept trying to find my way back to you," she answered him.

"You think some damned zombie apocalypse is enough to keep us apart?"

Her lips curved into a smile at that. She rested her forehead against his chest for a moment. When she looked up again, she whispered, "Daryl Dixon, I lo- "

But he silenced her next words. He dipped his dark head and kissed her. Passionately. Deeply. Reverently. With all the love that his soul was capable of feeling.

Neither heard, in the background, a gasp or two from the people that were watching in stunned silence. They were lost, for the moment, completely in each other.

_the real end_

* * *

><p><em>AN: Like so many people, I felt let down by the final  
>episode. Some things just have to be<br>fixed, because really there should be so much more to the human spirit than hopelessness,  
>despair and death. I like to think that<br>something good, that love can survive against all odds.  
><em>


	2. Chapter 2

**_Beth and Daryl:  
><em>**

**_Chapter 2_**

It was silent out there.

"_Like a tomb_," he heard a disembodied voice inside his head whisper.

Used to the voices now, Rick merely agreed. Sometimes, it was true, the whole world did seem like a vast, unending graveyard. There were no lights. No traffic. No sounds, save for the wind that mourned through the trees, and, of course, the faint rustling and the snarls of walkers that occasionally wandered too close in their hunt for something alive.

How long had it been? he wondered. Time had become a vague concept, one that was hard for him to hold onto. It just slipped away quietly, like grains of sand in some surreal hourglass. There was just- darkness.

It must have been like this in the beginning, when the first humans had been banished from the garden and their hearts were heavy with loss. Or maybe after the earth had been flooded in the time of Noah. Only now it was flooded with the undead because the human race had been virtually wiped out. Again. It was hard not to wonder if it was some kind of divine punishment.

And he? He was trapped in a nightmare world. Or maybe he was trapped in someone else's nightmare. He just wanted to wake up and go home. Be with his loved ones again.

Maybe that gunshot had really lodged inside his head and not his chest, because sometimes it did feel like shards of glass had exploded in his brain. That is, when he wasn't drifting aimlessly, wasn't numb, or tangled up with his maddeningly elusive thoughts.

The cold wind continued to blow against him out in the open where he sat hunched over in brooding solitude. His threadbare coat offered little resistance to the wind. The driven rain stung his face till it felt numb, or nearly numb, as cold replaced the warmth one frigid degree at a time. But he barely noticed the cold. In fact he welcomed the raw feel of it because it meant that he was alive, even if it meant that he could also feel the cold seeping deeply into the very marrow of his bones. He preferred to concentrate on that, and not on the desolation that had hollowed out his soul. Not on . . .

Everything he had been trying to escape. Everything that threatened his meager existence. For life, he had found, could be tenuous at best, could be extinguished in a solitary, unguarded moment.

There were times when he had to be alone like this to try and keep himself from falling even deeper. Even still, sometimes it was a huge struggle as he felt himself sliding close to the edge of a very frightening precipice. If he should let go, if he should fall, he did not know if he would survive intact. Or, in fact, if he would survive at all. Yet some kind of instinct kept him going. Hopelessly, perhaps, but it was all he had left. The alternative, the fall, was too terrifying for him to contemplate. So he clung with a kind of pathetic desperation because he did not know what else to do.

It felt like there was a wall standing between him and something dark, something that threatened to wash over him like an engulfing tide from which there was no return. The wall had kept him safe until now, but there were holes perforating the wall and things were leaking through those holes. So much filtered through now that he almost panicked when he realized that he could not go on like this forever.

A night bird screeched in the deep shadows of the woods, startling him. An answering scream echoed in the hollow. It was like metal sliding against metal, high pitched and intrusive. Some prey had just yielded up its life, no doubt, and the night became a little lonelier. A little more desolate. His guilt had been a poison in his veins for too long, he decided. A burden too heavy to carry. How long was he going to go on in this state? Enough days of pain had etched themselves across his existence . . .

Something caught his eye. He looked harder, trying to focus in the darkness. Against the lighter-colored field, a shadow moved. He tensed, leaning forward even more, eyes straining into the murky layers of night. A single figure was moving through the field. It was barely a shadow in the fog from this distance, but it was definitely there.

He tightened his stiff, frozen fingers into fists. His breath caught in his chest and he seemed to have to labor to catch his next breath. He saw with alarm that the dark figure loomed closer. It was gliding smoothly like a wraith, but still it seemed as if it were a part of the shadows. The pale face turned slowly and he imagined that it watched him with fixated eyes.

It terrified him. If he did not remain vigilant, if he came face to face with-

He shook his head, trying to clear it. He accepted that he had to deal with this on his own. No one else understood the danger. But . . .

But the shadows were deceptive. He was weary and his eyes were tired. He closed them for several long moments. When he opened them again, he saw with alarm that the shadow had vanished. A kind of helpless terror gripped his heart. Too terrified to move, he sat as still as a statue, paralyzed with fear. He did not dare to turn around, not even after he heard the ragged breathing close behind him. His own breathing was shallow as he heard the slight, prolonged cracking of bone, imagined the decayed mouth opening wide in hideous mirth. The expected laugh came as he knew it would. It was a low, demonic sound that sent a stab of fresh fear through his belly. Now he trembled and drew a raspy breath himself.

Still, he did not look. He could not make himself face the thing that had been pursuing him all along.

"Look out at the empty darkness," Rick heard. From the corner of his eye, he saw a grey, decomposed hand sweep wide beside him. "What do you see, Rick?" came the expected taunt. "You lost your faith and now where are you?"

Rick had no sane answer, so the ghoul answered his own question. "You're caught in some netherworld between life and death. A place where the living aren't living and the dead aren't dying.

"Go to hell," Rick muttered.

"We'll do that together," Shane promised. As he leaned closer, cold, panting breaths fanned the back of Rick's neck. Each slow exhale made a stream of foul mist in the air close beside his face. "If you hadn't been so weak," Shane went on. "None of this would have happened." His voice ended in a deep, rattling growl.

Rick now imagined that he, himself, was corpse-cold as the wind robbed the last of the warmth from his body. The stench of death, so close behind him now, pressed against him, surrounded him. He breathed it inside his lungs and it became a part of him, surging with each heartbeat through all his veins.

"Where did you think you would end up?" his tormenter whispered, leaning closer still. "You're responsible for all of it. Even when you murdered me."


	3. Chapter 3

**_Beth and Daryl:  
><em>**

**_Chapter 3_**

The screams and the cries were impossible to ignore, even from a distance. They forced Daryl to make a hasty decision, the only one he could live with.

"I said we'll leave 'em," Rick repeated as he got to his feet.

Daryl ignored Rick's rigid stance and said, "I can't do that."

"Bad choice," Rick warned as Daryl grabbed up his bow. "You can't reach them in time."

"You don't know that," Daryl muttered beneath his breath.

Rick tilted his face to one side and squinted as he tried another tactic. "You don't know what you'll find out there." His eyes darted back and forth as he lifted his head and searched the foggy terrain himself. No telling what was out there. They were down in numbers as it was. Abraham had gone off with the other vehicle looking for food and supplies. Rosita was with him.

"You don't know that this isn't some kind of trap," Rick tried. "You can't even see what's out there. With all the noise, that field is probably crawling with walkers by now."

It was true that the far edge of the field could not be seen under a thick, drifting layer of mist and the woods were already black with shadows. But a dying sunset still had the horizon aflame with a blood-hued smear of light. The screams were coming from a sprawling old cemetery. Headstones rose up like ancient megaliths through the fog.

The group had been relatively safe for the past three days after a harrowing escape from the city, but they had survived because they had all worked together. Thanks to Rick's latest decision, the group was now divided. Those that wanted to respond to the screams. And those that were hesitant about a rescue attempt.

But Daryl didn't need Rick's permission. And he couldn't wait any longer. A particularly piercing cry for help rose above the others.

"They're already dead," Rick said.

"They're not dead," Daryl muttered back, his voice edged now with impatience, and more. The last thing he needed now was a fight with Rick.

Rick was in no mood for a fight, either. Or this latest example of Daryl's rebellion. Worn out and jumpy from a sleepless night, and struggling with his persistent headaches, he snarled back, "You can't save everyone," he called out to Daryl's back.

"Maybe not, but I can at least try."

"I said no."

Daryl spun around. "It's not your call."

Rick stalked forward a few steps. "I don't want you risking the group for strangers. We don't even know who they are."

"I didn't ask for your permission. Or for anyone's help," Daryl shot a glance past Rick at the part of the group that hung back.

"You go out there and you're on your own," Rick told him with an aggressive thrust of his chin. "You can't have the vehicle. It stays here."

One corner of Daryl's mouth drew back in a kind of snarl as he grunted his reply.

"I'm not asking for it."

Daryl was willing to do this on his own, but that wasn't strictly the case, he saw. Tyrese had decided to go with him. Glenn had stood up, too, but Maggie shook her head and after a moment of indecision and internal struggle Glenn sat down again. Tara had been about to go, as well, but when Glenn sat down, she apparently changed her mind.

Beth was willing, of course. She always had his back.

"Wait here for me," he said as he rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment.

"I can't lose you, too," she whispered up at him.

"Then just believe that I'll come back," he said. And then he was gone, already jogging across the field.

Beth stood watching him. The moans and the screams and the weeping reached her from a distance, and it was frustrating because she couldn't do anything about it. Daryl loomed large in her thoughts now, a big part of her life. Always helping her survive. Always giving her a reason to go on. He was like her anchor, the knight in shining armor from her childhood, slaying dragons and rescuing her from glass mountains. Whenever it all became too much, or the darkness threatened, he was there, reassuring her and giving her something to live for, while- Rick? He stood behind her like a dark, looming shadow. She could almost feel what he was thinking as he, too, stared in the direction that Daryl had disappeared.

As for Rick, Beth had correctly interpreted his thoughts. He did not want to have to fight Daryl, too. Oh, he understood that scarcely-veiled, accusing look. Daryl was judging him. Daryl was challenging his authority. Again. The others were watching their clashes, he knew, and he couldn't afford to look weak.

There had been a change in Daryl. Ever since they had found Beth. Daryl didn't instantly obey him without questioning his decisions the way he used to. It was beyond irritating. More than that, it was bad for the group. How far would Daryl go in defying him? He really didn't know. He hadn't expected Shane to rise up against him, either. He shouldn't have underestimated _him_, because eventually he had to put a stop to it. Yeah, look what had happened with Shane.

It was just the three of them. Sasha went because Tyrese went. They had to run a gauntlet of walkers to get to the cemetery. Halfway across the field, the walkers came at them from all directions. The rain-soft earth and the fog didn't help any. It was like one of those nightmares where you try to run, but you can't get anywhere. But if the mud slowed them down, it slowed the walkers down, too.

They finally reached the cemetery and saw that it was filled with corpses on top of the ground, not under it. More walkers swarmed through the gate behind them. Like locusts, they were intent on devouring every living thing in their path. They were voracious feeders, and insatiable. You never encountered a walker that wasn't hungry for a meal. Some sort of survival mechanism in their brains seemed to be stuck in high gear.

Daryl realized that there were no more screams. Only the sounds of feeding surrounded him. The tearing of flesh, the slurping, the gulping and the moaning sounds caused rage to rise up inside him. He struck with his knife, taking out one walker who was leaning over the body of a young woman and lapping up her blood. He stabbed again and again, until the sounds ceased. And then he slowly stood, drawing deep, ragged breaths through his mouth. There was a slight wind blowing against him. It was laden with the familiar stench of blood and rotted corpses and, more faintly, by the sweeter scent of trees in bloom. It was that time of year.

He looked around. Bodies littered the ground everywhere. They were strewn about like bloody rag dolls among the marble statues. Men. Women. And the smaller bodies of children. His gaze rested on a motionless form slumped against a headstone. A teenage boy probably. He could tell by the clothes. But the features were so eaten you could barely tell it was human.

Daryl turned his face away from the gruesome sight. What had he been doing when he was that age? Wasting his life probably. But at least he hadn't been running every second just to stay alive.

He looked around at the other victims. It had been a small group, just like them.

And all of them were dead.

Or nearly dead.

A man with his belly ripped open was still alive. A motionless walker lay on its side next to him. Daryl could barely find it in him to put the man out of his misery, even though the man was pleading for that with his eyes. Daryl made it fast and then he turned away, sickened by what he'd just done, sickened by the carnage all around him, for the smell of blood and decay was heavy on the air and the silence seemed obscene somehow.

"This didn't have to happen," he heard Tyrese say as he came up beside him.

Yeah, Daryl knew that, too. They could have stopped all this. If they had gotten here faster. Thanks to Rick, that hadn't happened. But there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it now. More walkers, drawn by the screams were still staggering out of the woods.

He turned when he heard a vehicle approaching. It rolled up slowly, in no hurry, even thumped over a few bodies before it came to a stop. The door opened and Rick got out. He didn't say anything. He just headed for a walker and started hacking away. When he was finished, he moved on to another one.

After a long time, when he was finally spent from the butchering, Rick was bent over a walker, slashing with the last of his energy. A string of glistening drool was hanging from Rick's mouth all the way to the ground. His chest was heaving. He made several jerky movements of his head as if he was disoriented. It made him look like a walker himself. He sounded like one, too, as he drew in a halting, wheezing breath.

Deep inside, Rick _was_ close to yielding to the darkness inside him. He was on the very edge. As far as he could go. Crouched there in the fog, with both hands in the mud to support himself, his gaze shifted and he looked up at Daryl. In that instant Daryl had the impression that he was looking into the eyes of a feral animal consumed with blood lust.

Forgetting Daryl, and with a hoarse cry, Rick suddenly swung his dripping machete, which was his weapon of choice now. He severed both arms of the walker beneath him. The head was next to go. To Daryl, it looked like Rick was enjoying it way too much.

Abraham came along in the other vehicle just then. He stood for a while staring around at the massacre that surrounded them. Then he, himself, decapitated a walker and rammed the severed head down on one of the fence posts.

Some members of the group reacted by turning their faces away in disgust. Some stared in shocked horror, not sure what to think. Or say. Or feel.

As Abraham stood looking impassively at the bodies all around him, he said after a glance at a tombstone: "But the bastards don't want to rest in peace."

Daryl asked Rick. "What made you change your mind about coming?"

Rick gave a short, terse answer. "The group can't afford to lose you."

"That's why you came?"

"Yes," Rick answered. "I need to do everything I can to keep_ us_ alive." He shrugged negligently. "That's what any good military commander does."

"We're just citizens, Rick," Daryl said wearily. "We're not soldiers."

"But this _is_ a war," Rick countered. "And if we forget that, then we are going to lose."

"They were _us_, Rick." Daryl couldn't get the screams out of his mind. "They were just like us. There were kids- "

Rick cut him off abruptly. "_We're_ alive. That's what matters."

"We'll take their weapons," he heard Rick say next. "And anything else of value that we find."

And so, following Rick's orders, they systematically began to rob the bodies of the dead.


	4. Chapter 4

**_Beth and Daryl:  
><em>**

**_Chapter 4_**

"I'd like someone to wake me up from this nightmare." Beth was staring out the window while daylight filtered in through the blinds, softly lighting the room.

Daryl was trying to fix a clock. There was no reason for it. Like so many other things, time was irrelevant now. But he had been working on it patiently and he had it ticking again. He looked up at Beth. "I'd do that for you if I could. You know that."

He studied her for a few moments longer, contemplating how his life had changed since she had come into it. Beth was always there, in his thoughts and in his decisions. A big part of who he was.

She had suffered the loss of her mother and it seemed like she could not get over it. She never spoke of it, but it was there in the back of her mind. Always. Guilt was a part of her agony, just like she had never had time to mourn the loss properly. The pain was so devastating that she shrank from even looking it in the face. It remained a presence in the shadows, a monstrous thing that threatened to consume her.

The clock stopped ticking and Daryl muttered an oath as he looked back down at it.

"We need to move on," he said abstractedly as he turned the clock over in his hands.

She turned from the window. "Do we?" she asked. He heard the strain in her voice now.

"We can't stay here," he said almost gently.

"What about Rick?" she asked.

"I don't know," he answered. "I think that something else is driving Rick. But we need to move on, no matter what Rick decides to do."

"You mean split up the group?"

"I don't want to do that. But we may have no choice. Some will stay with Rick no matter what happens."

She nodded slightly while a sigh escaped her. "I know that."

Frustrated by the clock that refused to cooperate, Daryl glared down at it as if he could fix it by sheer will power alone. Then he set the clock down and impatiently brushed the dark strands of hair back from his face.

"If we want to stay alive, we might have to make some hard decisions," he said, watching her across the room.

She knew that he was only telling her the truth. There was a lack of trust in the group. People weren't working together anymore. Too much was changing. And maybe- most importantly, there was a lack of moral compass. It threatened to pull the group apart at the seams.

But Beth was already torn. She couldn't bear the thought of leaving Judith. Rick would never let her go. And she didn't know where Maggie and Glenn stood.

"How soon do you think . . . " her words trailed off.

"I don't know. For now we'll just watch where things go. You seem to have a lot on your mind this morning."

"I was thinking." She paused, listening to the deep silence. "About how thoughts and hopes and dreams generate a kind of life of their own. I mean, our thoughts are real, so . . . "

He smiled at her as her voice trailed off. "You've been thinking pretty deeply lately."

"So have you," she said, softly accusing, realizing she probably knew _his_ thoughts more than anyone on the face of the earth.

"Nah," he replied. "Not if I can help it." His lips curved into a faint smile. Then he looked at her more intently. "I can't help but see that you're connecting things more, trying to reason everything out."

"I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing," she said, making a confession of sorts.

He looked at her, maybe a little sadly this time. "You know we can't stay this way forever, Beth. Stuck between two places, not moving on in either direction. We'll never find something better in that case."

She merely nodded. Somewhere inside herself, she knew the truth. 

* * *

><p>The next morning, Daryl tried to talk to Rick. But it was not an easy conversation. It didn't take a super intellect to realize that the group was going to hell- and fast. Rick was drinking. Again. Daryl knew it was to numb himself, but it was just another symptom of a rapid downhill slide. Rick had been trying to keep Carl, and everyone else, from knowing about it, but of course, eventually, it would come out. You couldn't keep something like that a secret forever.<p>

Abraham was confrontational and belligerent, sometimes overshadowing Rick entirely. He answered to no one, and didn't give a damn about anyone or anything. He did pretty much what he wanted, whenever he wanted. He strutted around with an irritating, in-your-face attitude that got on Daryl's nerves more and more as time went on. The open sexual behavior that often passed the boundaries into outright perversion, was offensive to everyone. As for Rosita, she was letting Abraham lead her down the same depraved road that he had chosen.

Carl went off on his own a lot. Which was typical teenage behavior. The one bright spot was that Carol was doing better. She was even able to walk a little. Maggie seemed to grow more hopeless and bitter each day, while Glenn was frustrated trying to make her happy. Tara just seemed lost in general.

Sasha was still immersed in grief, which often manifested itself in anger. Towards everyone. Michone worried about Rick and, after a blow-up with him while he'd been drinking, confided to Daryl one day that maybe eventually she might be better off on her own again.

"Those people last night were just like us. They didn't ask for any of this. Any more than we did." Rick didn't answer, so Daryl tried again. "They deserved a little dignity."

"Dignity is a luxury in this world," Rick told him in a low, dispassionate voice.

"We need to move on, Rick. Find someplace better. Get a new start." But Daryl already knew that Rick was averse to leaving. It was as if something had a hold on him here.

"I can't leave."

"There's nothing holding us here. I've thought a lot about this, Rick. We have too many negatives in the group now. Carol can barely get around. Eugene either can't talk or he won't. Abraham is plain trouble walking. Hell, I'm sure he's hiding _something_. And if he is, it can't be good. We need to find a safe place, some place we can make defendable. Carol needs a place to recover. If I've learned one thing, it's that running isn't living."

"We don't have much choice there," Rick commented almost to himself.

"We'll be safer if we stay out of the populated areas," Daryl went on, knowing that he was probably just wasting his breath. "We barely made it out of Atlanta. But we have two working vehicles now and enough gas to get us far away from here. There has to be a place better than this."

"We _have_ looked for a safe place."

"We go in circles. We never leave this area."

Rick gave him a sidelong glance. "You know how I feel about that. The roads will be death traps. They'll be the perfect ambush, set up by anyone who wants to take what we have."

"All the roads can't be covered," Daryl tried reasoning with him.

"But some will be," Rick said without looking up.

"We have choices, Rick- "

"Not necessarily. In a way, we're just walking corpses, too. Dead inside. We're cursed."

_Cursed?_

"Is that what you think?" Daryl asked with a frown.

"You haven't figured that out yet? Adam and Eve didn't listen to the rules," Rick went on. "So they were cursed. Cain slew Able, and _he_ was marked. Hell, the whole Bible is full of curses. We're cursed, too. No matter where we go, we can't get away from it."

"We can't think that way. We have to keep thinking that there's something out there- "

"You mean like have faith?" Rick scoffed. "I prayed to keep my family safe. Look what good that did."

"Carl and Judith are safe."

"They're motherless. What kind of a life is that? And how long do you think they'll keep being safe?"

"They'll have a better chance if we make the right decisions. We need to think things through. That's the only way to stay alive."

Rick looked up slowly. Clearly, he hadn't expected Daryl to bring up his decisions.

"All I'm saying is that we can't afford to make any more big mistakes." Daryl went on, knowing he was treading on thin ice. "That's the only way we're going to have any kind of future."

"Future?" Rick looked confused, as if he didn't really understand the concept. "I've made the decisions I have to make." Rick's look was almost challenging for a moment, but he shook his head and started talking about the past like he was still lost there.

"We're wanderers in a desert, Daryl," he went on. "Forty years. That's how long Moses led the Isrealites through the Wilderness. It was more than a generation. Do you get what that means?"

But Rick wasn't an inspired leader, Daryl thought. Like Moses, he was a reluctant one. Though, at times, he did exhibit the same kind of rage that Moses had struggled with. Daryl had seen Rick run that cop down like a dog in the street and shoot him in cold blood. It bothered him then. It was still bothering him.

"You've done your best to lead these people . . . " he began, but Rick cut him off abruptly.

"I gave faith a try once. Even before everything fell apart, my marriage was in trouble. I prayed a lot then. I'm sure Lori was- seeing Shane when I was still in that coma in the hospital. Hell, probably even before that. How do you think that makes me feel? Shane was supposed to be my best friend." Rick muttered a low oath. "He_ always_ had a thing for Lori. He never told me that, but I knew. And eventually Shane's jealousy got the better of him. He would have killed me to get me out of the way. That's why I had to . . . "

"We've all done things we regret," Daryl broke in. "But that's over now."

Rick caught a glimpse of Beth coming out of the house, and he glanced over at Daryl. "You really think you got a shot in hell at any kind of a normal relationship?" He gave a dry, humorless laugh. "Not in this world. The sooner you realize that, the better. You've got to have realistic expectations, Daryl. Otherwise you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. But- " he added. "There is one thing I _have_ learned about human nature from all this. People have been carving out territories for themselves and taking what they want. We just need to protect our own. If that means being ruthless, then that's a choice we have to make."

"So, you, uh, have a territory in mind?"

Rick gave Daryl a mysterious look, but didn't share whatever plans he might have.

"These people need to believe there is hope. You need to give them that."

"Hope for what?" Rick asked cynically.

"Just hope. Isn't that enough?"

"I thought so once. But I know better now. We're on a sure course," he assured Daryl. "A sure course."

"To where exactly?" Daryl asked, hoping to learn something of Rick's plans.

"To the same place we've already got one foot in."

"Where the hell is that?" Daryl questioned, annoyed that they were going around in circles.

"What you just said," Rick replied. "Hell."

"You really believe that?"

"Don't you?"

Daryl didn't have an answer.

"What about the ghosts, Daryl? Doesn't that prove what I'm saying?"

"Ghosts belong in the past, Rick."

"Yeah, but they won't always stay there." 

* * *

><p>Rick's plan was to drink himself into oblivion. He couldn't get away from it all if he didn't. Lori was back. And not just in his dreams. And Shane? Shane was a walking, talking nightmare.<p>

Shane's voice came at him out of the darkness. "I tried to walk away from her, but the woman can haunt you. You know that's true, Rick. You know it better than anyone. She can drive a man to murder. But then you already know that, too, don't you?"

Rick didn't want to hear anymore, but Shane was relentless.

"See, Rick, you do know that we were hot and heavy even before you were in that coma. Your marriage had been falling apart for a long time. You probably don't even know how close you were to losing everything. Then Lori turned to me and I thought things would take their natural course and I'd have her to myself. But it didn't work out that way. Though she was into me, Rick. Really into me. She couldn't get enough- "

"Don't tell me that," Rick burst out, clutching the bottle tightly in his fist.

Shane shrugged. "I don't have to tell you that. You already know it's true."

"It's a lie," Rick said, taking another drink and trying to repair the breach. But somewhere deep inside he knew it was the truth.

"You've kind of liked it all along, haven't you? Hacking up walking corpses, I mean. And now you're taking your frustrations out on the living, too. You've got blood on your hands, Rick."

"That's not killing. That's- survival."

"You can call it whatever you want." Shane's voice ended in a low, raspy growl. "I don't blame you. I've killed, too. To protect the ones I love. Which happen to be the very same ones that you call your loved ones."

Rick finished the last inch or so of whiskey and then, with a quick flick of his wrist, tossed the bottle away. It shattered somewhere out in the darkness.

Shane breathed out a sigh of foul air. "You're going to look like me eventually, Rick. There's no way out of it." He laughed quietly under his breath as he watched Rick's reaction. "If I were alive right now, you'd tear me to pieces, wouldn't you? But it's not comfortable being this close to death, is it?"

Shane sat half in shadow, his pale eyes glittering an accusation in the moonlight. He shook his head slowly, and said, "You killed me. Your best friend. And for what? Because of Lori? Or because I questioned your decisions? Look at Daryl. He's gotten a lot stronger. You know he has. He's questioning you, too." Shane gave him a sly look with those predatory, colorless eyes. "You made the wrong decision again."

Rick didn't want to hear it. He got abruptly to his feet as he felt it coming over him again.

The helpless slide into madness, the inability to stop the decent.

"I do what I have to do," he defended, clenching his hands into tight fists at his sides.

"You mean you _had_ to let Lori die?" Shane's voice became a raspy snarl. He had stood, too, and now, without warning, he was holding a knife to Rick's throat.

"Why don't you kill me and get it over with," Rick sputtered behind clenched teeth. "Isn't that what you really want? Revenge?"

One corner of Shane's disfigured mouth drew back into something that didn't even come close to a smile. "That would be too easy," Shane whispered in Rick's face, dragging out the word "_easy"_ on a sickening, ragged breath between black, rotted teeth.

Rick stared into the mirror, barely recognizing himself, confused because he was suddenly alone, holding the knife to his own throat.


	5. Chapter 5

**_Beth and Daryl:  
><em>**

**_Chapter 5_**

Daryl closed the gate and took off his clothes. Once he was naked, he climbed the ladder and then dropped down into the water. It was warmer than he had thought it would be. Not as much of a shock as he had anticipated.

Lots of houses had swimming pools and some of these were relatively clean. Virtually all of them had fences around them. It afforded privacy and kept the walkers out. Usually. Occasionally they would see a walker floating around in a pool, flailing about and splashing aimlessly, but it was rare to encounter one. Except for the ones with the walkers in them, pools were generally a lot cleaner than a pond and you didn't have to worry about an underwater walker coming along unexpectedly, like the one that had once scared the hell out of him. So he took advantage of the pools whenever he could.

He turned the shampoo bottle upside down and shook it hard to help gravity along. Then he squeezed the plastic bottle. The pearlized, lime-scented shampoo coiled into his upturned palm. He gave a kind of groaning sigh of pleasure as he lathered his hair, shoulders and chest with damned near half the bottle. Getting clean was one of the few pleasures he had left in life. He couldn't stand the blood spatter from the walkers staying on his body, or the putrid pus and slime that came along with it. The sprays of dark blood would quickly crust your hair and congeal on your skin and clothes. The walkers were decayed corpses. Hell, they smelled like rotten meat. Who knew what kind of bacteria they carried. So he bathed every chance he got. As for clean clothes, they weren't hard to come by. Almost every house had packed closets. You had your choice there. You could change ten times a day if you wanted to. And no need to worry about doing laundry, either. Clothes were disposable these days.

Apparently Rick and some of the others had gotten so used to the filth that it didn't seem to bother them. They'd had to kill some walkers that morning and Daryl had left Rick sitting by himself with a bottle of whiskey. Blood had splattered all over Rick's face. It had been thick around his mouth and nose, and it had dried into hard black streaks in his hair and beard.

Daryl shook his head when he thought about the blood caked under Rick's finger nails and staining his clothes. He grimaced when he thought about the small black clot clinging to Rick's beard and hanging there like a dried-up beetle. Maybe Rick didn't realize how bad he really looked. Kind of ghoulish himself. But then, maybe Rick never bothered to look in a mirror.

In spite of what they'd heard, Daryl sometimes wondered if it was possible that they could still become infected. They had drenched themselves in blood so many times that it seemed they should have turned already if it could happen. It was just one of the things that still remained a mystery, like the big question of what had started all this in the first place.

Daryl frowned as he thought more about Rick. Something was happening to him. Daryl couldn't ignore it any longer. It seemed that, at times, Rick was given over to temporary fits of madness, when a kind of rage took over him, when a truly terrifying look came into his eyes. At those times, he seemed to glory in the killing, the savagery, the blood lust. And then there were other times when he looked confused, even afraid. That was just as frightening to witness as the rage. Maybe moreso.

The drinking was another bad sign, but Daryl knew it was just a symptom of something else, something that was potentially far more dangerous for the group. Rick went off more and more by himself, too. Just disappeared without a word. Sometimes for hours at a time. Once he was gone for a whole day, leaving them all wondering if he was ever coming back.

Hershel had always kept Rick stabilized, but now Hershel was gone. The more Daryl thought about Rick, the more troubled he became. He had decided that Rick was in the grip of some kind of mental disorder. But there wasn't a hell of a lot he could do about it. There were no hospitals, no doctors, no magic pills. Any kind of diagnosis would be just a guess. The kind of guilt and grief Rick was carrying around, not to mention the responsibility he'd taken on, would be a heavy burden for anyone.

He picked up the can of deodorant setting on the pile of new clothes. He might need a haircut and maybe he looked a little rough around the edges, but there was no sense in smelling like a hog in a pen. He had clean, new boots that he looked forward to wearing, too. Nice leather ones.

He shook his head and pushed the wet strands of hair back from his face. Hell, how vain was he getting? Pretty damned vain, apparently, because he found himself wondering if Beth would approve of the new clothes he'd picked out. He even smiled to himself when he remembered that Beth had told him that he looked like some kind of dark hero that had stepped straight out of some surreal video game world. One thing he did know. No one in his old life had thought of him that way.

* * *

><p>Gabriel had tried to wash the blood stains out of the church floor, but he hadn't been successful. He hadn't been able to wash his heart clean, either. Just like the wooden floor, the stain went too deep. He had learned a very sobering lesson firsthand. A lesson that reached deeply into his soul. That sin had a far-reaching effect. Upon many lives. Just like ripples in a pond, sin kept reaching outward in ever-widening circles, leaving no one spared.<p>

He frowned into the deepening dusk, seeing ghosts from the past, wondering if he would ever find peace. It seemed like a long time ago since he had turned his own flock away. An eternity since they had fallen prey to wolves and been devoured. Victims not of their own sin, but his.

And what effect had had _they_ had on other people's lives? On their victims? On _this_ group's lives? That terrible truth had not been lost on him, either.

He pressed his hands to his face as guilt washed over him anew. He should have believed beyond his fear. He should have had faith enough to do the right thing. But his own terror had driven him to cast his congregation out into a wilderness of unspeakable horror and death. It wasn't only that he had been afraid to open the doors. He had _decided_ not to open the doors. And by that one act, he had condemned them all to a horrific fate. He had also condemned the people they had killed. _He_ hadn't had enough faith. How could he have expected them to have more than he had been capable of? Look what fear of hunger had driven him to do.

He knew now that they had ended up at Terminus. Some of them, at least. Whatever they had been through, whatever had made them to do what they had done, it was his fault. It had begun with him. Sin rippling outward, touching everyone in its path.

His guilt became agonizing in its sharpness. It ate away at his insides like a disease. There could be no forgiveness for him, he knew, for the simple fact that he could not even begin to forgive himself.

* * *

><p>Gabriel had his head bowed. He seemed lost in thought while he sat there with his clasped hands pressed tightly against his mouth. Those hands, Daryl noted, were trembling badly.<p>

He must have bathed in the pool behind him. Daryl saw a bar of soap and a used towel. He had changed his clothes, too. Gone were the church clothes.

"You washing your sins clean?"

Gabriel looked up. Daryl could not help noting the beseeching, anguished look in the man's eyes.

It had been a stupid joke. Daryl regretted making it and wished he could call it back.

"You all right?" Daryl asked.

"I killed someone today."

"We've all had to do that. I guess if you need to find a reason, they deserve to be at peace."

"Once I started, I couldn't stop," Gabriel went on in a hushed voice.

Yeah, Daryl understood all about that. Once you committed yourself to killing a walker, adrenaline just took over and you had a tendency toward overkill because you had to make sure it was dead. So it couldn't get up and come at you again. They did seem like they got pissed off sometimes. It was like smacking a big spider ten times with a shoe to make sure that it was dead. A spider had fangs and could bite back. So could a walker.

"Does it bother you? Anymore?" Gabriel asked.

"It just . . . has to be done," Daryl replied. There was no other answer to give him. No words to make it any better or change anything. "I don't think of them as human anymore," he added. "Not usually . . . " His voice trailed off. That wasn't strictly true in all cases. Sometimes he did. Especially when they were kids. Or if they reminded him of someone he had known.

At the sound of a child's laughter, Gabriel looked up. He watched Carl playing with Judith and his face softened a bit. "They'll look to us for guidance," he said.

Daryl didn't say anything.

"What _we_ choose will change _their_ lives," Gabriel added.

This time, Daryl muttered an answer under his breath as he watched the two playing. When he looked back, he saw that Gabriel was holding a Bible in his hand.

"This isn't just a book about dead people," Gabriel said as if only now realizing the full impact of some new revelation. "It's still a guide for us today. It lives and breathes, changing with each generation, but the message is still the same. It's the only place we can find the truth. If we look for truth somewhere else . . . " His words faded with the flow of his thoughts and he shook his head slowly.

Daryl was a little uncomfortable with the subject. Especially with this man who probably knew the book inside and out. Beth talked with him about religion sometimes, and he did have questions. He wanted to have the same kind of faith she had, but he didn't know if he could ever get there. She had been raised on the Bible, while his life, he suspected, had been a study in everything contrary to the Bible's teachings. He had been taught _not_ to believe. He had been taught to mock _anything_ to do with the Bible or Christians.

"Faith isn't always the easy choice," Gabriel said quietly. "But it's what we _have_ to choose."

"You think all that still applies?" Daryl asked with a frown.

"I think it especially applies today. Hadn't you noticed how dissatisfied the last couple of generations were becoming?" Gabriel asked. "Maybe that's because we were filling our lives with empty, meaningless things and forgetting what is really important. We got arrogant, replaced the need for God with the need for technology and machines. Those things became what we worshipped. And as a result, we were all dying inside and didn't even know it."

Daryl thought that over.

"We cursed ourselves in the beginning. Maybe we cursed ourselves again."

Daryl looked up. Curse talk again. He passed his hand over his beard- shadowed chin and asked, "You think we brought this on ourselves?"

"I can't help but think that," Gabriel went on. "Every once in a while, throughout all of human history, a disruption in our very existence comes along. Something that gets our attention. Something we can't ignore. Death intrudes and we get reminded of our mortality all over again." He contemplated the sky for a few long moments. "But the sun still comes up every day just as it always has. The moon and the stars are still out there. The rain falls and the grass grows. The birds still sing. Those things don't change. Maybe those are reminders to us that something bigger than this plague is still in control."

Daryl stared down at the ground between his new boots and shook his head. "I don't know. That all sounds pretty hopeful."

"We're still alive. That means there still is hope, doesn't it?"

Daryl had no answer to give. Hope seemed like a fragile commodity these days. "What if we let ourselves believe that and then we find out it was all just a lie?" he finally asked.

"You mean what if we are too afraid to have faith?" Gabriel asked back. "Then I suppose we have already yielded to the darkness and we're no different than the walking dead."

It was a sobering thought. Daryl knew that he, himself, had lived a generally misspent life, but did he really deserve this kind of punishment? Did any of them?

"You think this is some kind of divine punishment?" he asked.

Gabriel drew a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "No. We're perfectly capable of setting things in motion ourselves. Then we blame God for the outcome. We don't know what's going on out there. In other cities. In other countries. We don't know what started all this. There might be answers out there. Maybe somewhere out there scattered remnants of society have held on to what is important and they are picking up the pieces. It could be that they've only just now discovered what's important. Maybe they're re-building. And maybe we will wake up from this nightmare someday and find ourselves in a better place. But right now? We're all lost in the darkness. We were lost from the moment we started rebelling and crying for something better." He held the book up slightly. "Without this we're wanderers in a wilderness of death. We always have been."

Daryl grunted an agreement. "There _is_ a lot of death out there."

That at least was one truth they could agree on.

Gabriel looked at the chain link fence that surrounded the yard. "At least we're safe here," he said.

"Don't get too comfortable," Daryl told him. "If enough walkers come along, a fence won't hold 'em."

* * *

><p>"You want to take a bath?" Daryl asked, echoing Beth's words.<p>

Beth looked around. "Yes, but I- " she began. She had some towels, soap and clean clothes ready.

He knew why she hesitated. She didn't feel comfortable with the others around. She especially didn't trust Abraham. She said she didn't like the way he looked at her. To be honest, Daryl didn't like the way Abraham looked at her, either. She had confided to him that Abraham reminded her of an uncle that had touched her inappropriately when she was younger. And Eugene? He was a whole other story.

She glanced up at the windows of the house, particularly the attic window. It was high enough to overlook the pool. There were plenty of holes in the fence, too.

"I'll check out the house and then patrol the fence for you."

She smiled her gratitude. Part of the job he had taken on was to make her feel safe. That's what he would do.

"I had a dream that I was swimming farther and farther out to sea," she said to his back when she was in the water.

"I think I was in that dream watching you," he teased.

She laughed outright at that. "You probably were."

"So what happened," he asked without turning around. He heard her getting out of the pool and drying off.

"Nothing. The dream didn't have an ending," she said, closer to him now.

"Maybe you're just waiting for someone to wake you up with a kiss."

"You mean like a handsome prince?" she asked, flirting openly. He could hear her getting dressed.

"I mean like- "

"Ahh," she interrupted him, crying out when she moved her hand and a sharp pain shot through it. She saw that there was a huge splinter stuck in the back of her hand.

"It's in so deep," she murmured, moaning a little as Daryl pulled the splinter out. Quick, with no warning at all. But she was glad it was gone.

* * *

><p>Maggie stopped the brush mid-stroke. "What happened to your hand?" she asked.<p>

"A splinter," Beth replied looking down at her badly-bruised, discolored hand.

Maggie resumed her gentle brushing of Beth's hair. "Good," she said with obvious relief. "Because I was afraid that maybe you had been bitten in that last fight."

"No, it was just a splinter. Daryl pulled it out for me."

There was a long silence, and then Beth heard: "Don't you think he's a little old for you?"

Beth answered her sister automatically and without thought. "He looks older than he really is."

Didn't they all?

"A zombie apocalypse does seem to age you," Maggie said as if she could read her sister's thoughts. "But I was wondering if you were thinking clearly."

"I'm thinking clearly where it counts. Anyway, you're older than Glenn," Beth couldn't help saying.

"Only by two years."

After another pause, Beth said, "I've heard you cry. You think I don't know that I can hear you, but I do."

"There's a lot to cry about," Maggie said with a shrug as she dragged the brush through Beth's curls. "For one thing, I've tried to take care of you, but look how I've failed."

Beth heard new tears in her sister's voice now.

"You don't have to feel responsible for me, Maggie."

"I can't help it. You should be thinking about things like makeup and doing your hair. Or what you're going to wear on your next date. Not- this."

"I think about what I will wear."

"You know what I mean. You should be going to parties, or going out for pizza with your friends."

"It's hard to think of those things when you're wondering what's around the next corner or where your next meal is coming from."

Maggie made a slight sound of agreement, then asked, "Do you really think you can handle a man like Daryl?"

"A man like _what_?" Beth asked.

"I can't help but wonder if you're really attracted to him, or if he's someone you've settled for because there aren't many men available."

"Is Glenn?" Beth countered.

"No," Maggie replied quickly. "But I would hate to think that Daryl took advantage of a school girl crush . . . "

"He hasn't done that," Beth assured her sister. "And I'm not a school girl anymore."

Maggie shrugged again. "Daryl's just not the kind of man I pictured you ending up with. He obviously has lived a very different kind of life than you have, Beth. Do you think either of our parents would have approved?"

"That isn't fair."

"You still expect things to be fair? In _this_ world?"

Beth let the remark go and said recklessly, "Who says I want to handle him? And maybe I like him the way he is."

Maggie sighed. "I don't expect you to know what a normal relationship is supposed to be like."

"And you do? We both live in the same world, you know."

Maggie made a slight, exasperated wave of her hand. "This has all changed you."

"Of course it has changed me. It has changed everyone. How could any of us be who we used to be?"

Maggie ignored her question and asked abruptly, "Are you having sex with him?"

Maggie took her non-answer as a yes.

"Are you at least using protection?" Maggie wanted to know. "Because a baby right now would be a disaster."

The brush paused. "So," Maggie began again, more intimately this time. "You haven't told me. Is he good in bed?"

"I can't believe we're actually having this conversation." Beth said with mock seriousness. Then, with a light laugh, she said, "Good doesn't even begin to describe it."

Maggie leaned forward and said very quietly. "That gash in your forehead, Beth, is going to leave a scar."

But Beth was already drifting away from her sister's voice, lost in her own thoughts.

* * *

><p>He thought about sex a lot. When he was bored, he thought about it. When he was frustrated or angry, it was a way to release some of the tension. It was about the one good thing there was left in the world that made him feel alive, at least temporarily, so he made the most of his opportunities. It wasn't just about the physical gratification. The truth was that the control that came along with sex gave him a kind of high, too. He felt powerful. He felt- hell, dominant. Like an alpha male.<p>

Rosita had been more than willing to see to his needs so far. Since the usual restraints of society had been all but wiped away, he planned to make the most of his newly-found freedom. He was confident that Tara would be his next conquest. He considered her too weak to say no. As for Maggie, he'd like to show her what a real man was like. Not that whipped kid she shared her bed with. Michone? He suspected she'd be a handful, like a tiger suddenly unleashed.

And then there was Beth. Beth, now. He'd really like to try some of that. He considered her the ultimate prize. Daryl would be a problem, but that wasn't something he felt he couldn't handle.

Why Rick wasn't already tapping this particular harem, he didn't know. Maybe he was. Maybe he just kept it to himself. He did know one thing. When Rick was around, he felt more confrontational, but more excited, more aggressive. Maybe it was the age-old clash between two dominant males that got him so worked up. Whatever it was, it seemed to keep in a state of constant arousal.

And now the odds were even more to his liking. The two women who had just joined the group were more than willing to use their bodies to pay or food. And protection. Yeah, things couldn't get much better. He laughed outright as he swaggered across the yard. There was more than enough of him to go around.

* * *

><p>AN: I can't wait to see the reaction to the twist at the end of this story. I also thought it would be fun to bring one of my characters from my book Blood Scourge: Project Deadrise (which I have a link to on my profile page) into this story to meet the characters from the Walking Dead and fill in some of the blanks. So he will make a brief appearance in the next chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

**_Beth and Daryl:  
><em>**

**_Chapter 6_**

Heavy drops of rain fell suddenly. They made a hard ticking on the leaves around him. Then just as suddenly as the rain came, it stopped. In the stillness, a slight wind rose, lifting dark wisps of hair from Daryl's collar and blowing a loose strand across his cheek. His eyes, narrowed with the intensity of his thoughts, reflected the leaden sky behind him as he rubbed the back of his forefinger slowly across his beard-shadowed chin.

It was an overcast day and daylight was slow in coming. The air was heavy with the familiar scents of autumn: wet leaves, damp earth and rain. And another smell that was becoming all-too-familiar. Pot.

He was alone and only quiet sounds surrounded him. The occasional faint sigh of the wind in the trees. The steady drip of moisture from brimming leaves. And a mourning dove repeating its mournful cry in the big sycamore tree in the yard.

"Quiet out there this morning," Rick said as he stepped out onto the porch and squinted out across the mist-veiled landscape. "Sometimes it seems like the whole world is a graveyard," he commented next.

Bringing the heavy smell of pot to Rick's attention, Daryl indicated the house next door with a slight jerk of his chin.

"Kind of early for that, don't you think?"

Rick looked over in the same direction, but he didn't answer.

"It doesn't bother you?" Daryl asked.

Rick maintained his silence, so Daryl tried, "This isn't who we started out to be. It's not who _you_ started out to be."

It was true and they both knew it. Since the two new women had come into the group, anything went. Drugs, alcohol, whatever they could get their hands on. And the sex was out there all the time, not exactly hidden behind closed doors.

They both looked over at the wooden fence surrounding the yard next door when they heard a loud splash and raucous laughter. Abraham was apparently still getting acquainted with the two new members of the group. Really acquainted. Rosita had been in the pool alone with him last night, but she had stormed out shortly after the two women had joined them. The women had brought a large quantity of pot with them and they were liberal in passing it around, probably because sharing guaranteed them permission to do what _they_ wanted.

"You're okay with Carl being exposed to all that? And Judith?"

Rick still didn't answer and Daryl now saw that he had some whiskey with him. He tilted his head back and drank straight from the half-empty bottle. Daryl had seen what drinking could do to a man. How it could consume him. How it could crowd out everything else in life and lead him to make very bad decisions, which could be deadly in this world. An alcoholic leader was a dangerous leader, any way you looked at it.

"You think that's a good idea?" he asked Rick.

Rick took another drink and grimaced at the burn of hard liquor. "I think it's a real good idea."

"That's not going to make things better."

"You're wrong, Daryl. It does for a while. It's about the only thing that does help."

"And what if something happens while . . . "

"Something is always happening," Rick broke in irascibly. "Do I have to be responsible for everything?"

And then Rick lowered his voice with a slight display of remorse. "It takes the edge off," he grumbled. "We all need that." He looked towards the fence and surprised Daryl by saying, "Women have been selling themselves since the beginning of time. There's nothing new in that."

"But you're okay with everything that Abraham- "

"I'm not his keeper," Rick cut in. "Abraham can do or be whatever the hell he wants to. As long as- "

"As long as he's useful to the group," Daryl finished. He had heard all this before. "I just can't help but feel that it's- wrong."

_And it's going to lead us straight to hell_, he finished silently.

Rick sighed as he stared into the distance. "This is a war, Daryl, and everyone has to contribute something. It's not about emotion or morality. We can't be weakened by those things. It's about surviving. Besides," he added thoughtfully. "It's been a long time."

"A long time for what?" Daryl asked.

"Are we supposed to live the rest of our lives like- priests? If they're willing, what's the harm? Don't tell me that you're not- "

"Don't," Daryl warned him. "Don't say it." He wasn't going to allow one crude word about his relationship with Beth.

Rick's last comment was to huff out a cynical snort under his breath. Daryl then watched Rick turn and walk away, knowing instinctively that something bad was coming. The choices they were making practically guaranteed it.

* * *

><p>The cold dampness felt heavy in his lungs. It gave Rick a strange, breathless sensation as the air moved in and out of his body with an almost conscious rhythm. Dust and mildew mingled with the decay of a century or more, coating everything around him. Cobwebs festooned the odd assortment of discarded, forgotten items, relics of by-gone eras that would never again be unearthed by human hands. The light was murky as it filtered weakly through the small, grime-coated windows. The thick stone walls muffled all sound, save for the rafters creaking momentarily as someone walked through one of the rooms above him.<p>

He was afraid, but he was drawn at the same time. He knew he had to be alone for her to appear to him, so he had sought out the solitude of the basement. Now that he was here, the silence pressed in on him almost like a living entity.

He hung his head, yielding for a moment to the despair that tugged at his insides like a black hole, too close for a moment to the hopelessness of reality.

He heard a noise from the far end of the basement. Every nerve in his body reacted as if to an electric shock. Fear clawed at his belly. But only for a brief space of time. He was already lured in. His thoughts were already evolving.

_You can do anything you set your mind to doing_. He had heard her say that a hundred times. Well, _this_ was what his mind wanted.

She was a wavering apparition, a vision in translucent white. But still beyond his reach.

"I need you," he croaked weakly, his voice half breaking.

"I needed you, too," she said, softly accusing.

"I tried." He heard the pleading in his own voice.

He heard, too, the scraping of one of his boots against the rough concrete floor and was afraid that the abrupt sound might make her disappear. But she floated there before him like a thing of the shadows. Or, perhaps, a manifestation of his nightmares.

"Why are you torturing me like this?"

"I'm not torturing you. You're doing that to yourself."

He nodded. "You're right. It was all my fault." His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper. "I'm not ready to let go of you."

She opened her mouth and he felt a stream of cold air against him. He shivered. His thoughts blurred for a moment from the whiskey, and more. He shook his head to clear it. It suddenly all became too much for him and he wept. For the past. For all he had lost. For the hopelessness of the future.

"We can be close again," he heard. "You want that, don't you?" Her eyes were unnaturally bright in the dim light as her head tilted slightly and she watched him intently. It was as if her very existence depended upon his answer.

"How?" he rasped, not sure he wanted to hear her answer.

"You just have to want it badly enough."

"What about Shane?" he asked. He had no choice there. He had to ask.

"I'm close to him, too," she said after a pause. It wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"How could you think about sleeping with him when everything was falling apart?" he asked feelingly. "When I was still alive?"

He thought she would be angry, but instead she released a slow sigh. He could see her breath on the air. "It was long before that. But deep inside you already know that." And then she added, "We belong together. It isn't too late."

"Tell me how."

"You already know."

He pressed his hand to his forehead as if his thoughts pained him, and closed his eyes.

"You can make it all go away," he heard her say. "We can be together."

His hand dropped heavily to his side. He leaned slightly forward and looked closer. He strained his eyes through the shadowy dimness and saw how the flesh of her face and throat was sunken close to the bone. She had always been painfully thin, practically gaunt. Now she looked almost skeletal. She made a low sound like a laugh. It became a sibilant whisper though he could not make out the words that frosted on the stale air. The laugh turned into a taunting sound, one that might have beckoned him to darkness and to hell if he let it. But that couldn't be. He was already there.

He could see the paleness of her face now, like the subdued, luminous glow of the distant moon. And the ghoulish look of her. He hadn't noticed that before. And he could see, too, the maggots crawling around at the corner of her smiling mouth.

* * *

><p>At the same moment that Rick dropped to his knees in the basement, Eugene came across Rosita. She was sitting by herself in one of the backyards. They had cleared the small subdivision of walkers, but he didn't like her being alone like this. Anything could happen.<p>

She sat motionless on a bench with her head buried in her hands. "I trusted him," she whispered. He knew she was talking about Abraham. "How could he betray me like this?" she asked, though he didn't know if she even realized that he was standing there.

Eugene tried to comfort her by laying his hand on her shoulder. Almost. He couldn't quite bring himself to touch her. She still seemed beyond his reach. Many nights he had watched her with Abraham and he had imagined that it was him making love to her, not that selfish, insensitive bastard that didn't care if he had hurt her.

"He made you cry."

Rosita looked up. It was the first words that Eugene had spoken since Abraham's brutal beating.

* * *

><p>Beth was wearing new clothes. The clothes were a little big for her but Daryl couldn't help thinking she looked sweet. And damned near irresistible. Her hair was soft and shining in the sunshine that had finally broken through the clouds. Right now she was pulling it back into a sensible braid, but loose tendrils were spilling all around her face.<p>

He watched her for a while, then went to help her with the braid. She closed her eyes at the touch of his hands and sighed. After a silence, he said close to her ear, "They're curious. They've been watching us to see what we're going to do next."

She heard the humor in his husky voice and maybe a hint of heat as he stood behind her.

"I know. So what _are_ we going to do?"

"This," he murmured. She felt his breath feather against the side of her throat as his lips pressed slow, sensuous kisses along her sensitive flesh.

"And this." His throaty whisper sent chills straight to her core as his hands fitted themselves to her slender waist. He turned her around and brought his mouth down on hers while her arms found their way around his neck.

"What else?" she asked, melting against him and going all syrupy inside. They had not been alone together in a very long time.

"The rest," he said. "Is nobody's business."

He gave her a sexy smile.

"You've been a lot more patient than I have been," she said coyly.

"Mmm mm," he replied as he pulled her tighter against him. "Does that feel like I'm being patient?"

She caught her breath, almost dizzy with desire herself when she felt the proof of his arousal.

"You've got no idea how hard it's been keeping a respectful distance from you," he informed her with a frown and a shake of his head.

Hard was the opportune word here. She traced the sculpted muscles of his chest beneath the T-shirt he was wearing.

"No. But maybe you can show me . . . "

Why had he thought she was such an innocent? She could drive him over the edge with a look. Or a single word.

With a slight lift of his chin, he said, "I checked this house out myself from top to bottom."

"I know you did. Did you find anything interesting?"

"Maybe a nice place where we could get– cozy for a while."

She looked up at him from beneath her lashes. "Cozy, huh?"

"Yeah. Someone turned the attic into a loft or something. There's even a bed up there." He gave her a conspiratorial look. "And a door that locks."

That's what they had both been waiting for. Privacy. She followed willingly when Daryl took her hand and led her inside.

Hours later, lying together in the quiet loft, Beth murmured, "We're still drifting, Daryl."

"We are," he agreed. "But I think I'm close to having that car repaired," he told her.

She didn't know how she felt about that. It might mean that they would be leaving this place. And then she would have to face-

"You'll be ready soon," he whispered, preparing her. She pushed the disrupting thoughts away and fell into a deeper sleep with the steady, comforting beat of Daryl's heart close by her.

* * *

><p>"Beth."<p>

Daryl's hoarse whisper woke her from a sound sleep. She didn't want to get up. She wanted him to come back to bed and make love to her again. But he called her again and this time there was an urgency in his voice that she couldn't ignore. She heard a commotion downstairs. Footsteps running. Doors slamming.

By the time Beth reached the window, Daryl was throwing his clothes on as fast as he could.

"What do you see?" she asked coming up behind him, alarmed by his urgency.

"Look for yourself," he said grimly.

"What- " Her voice ended in a gasp. Her eyes widened as she rubbed the sleep from them, trying to make sense out of what she was seeing in the distance.

"Get dressed," she heard as Daryl grabbed his boots.

From downstairs came a pitiful wail, muffled by the ceiling and the walls. "Not dead. Oh, God, no. How could this have happened?"


	7. Chapter 7

**_Beth and Daryl:  
><em>**

**_Chapter 7_**

Halfway down the staircase, Beth stopped short. It was a tense scene down below her. Daryl stood with his bow stretched taut as he faced another man, a stranger wearing military clothes. Tara was there, too, white-faced and obviously distraught. No one was moving. No one was saying a word.

"What's going on?" Beth asked, half fearing that by her very words she would precipitate some kind of reaction, some violence.

"That's what I'm about to find out," Daryl said without taking his eyes off the other man.

The man spoke. "I know this looks bad, but I didn't have anything to do with what happened to your friends."

"So you're trying to tell me you just happened to show up at the wrong time?" Daryl made a scoffing noise under his breath.

Even facing the lethal threat of the arrow, and Daryl's aggressive behavior, the man didn't lose his composure. And he didn't back down. "Apparently that's just what happened," he said in a voice that was like tempered steel.

Daryl jerked his chin slightly in Tara's direction. "She said it wasn't walkers."

"Don't you think I'd have blood all over me if I butchered those people the way she said they were?" the stranger pointed out.

Tara suddenly seemed to find her voice, and she broke in, "He's telling you the truth."

Daryl glanced at Tara, but he still hesitated for several tense moments. The man before him was well armed and he looked like he would be a powerful, formidable adversary. Finally, going on instinct alone, Daryl suddenly released the tension on his bow and lowered it.

"I had to make sure," he said without apology.

The man acknowledged Daryl's decision with a slight nod of his head. "I'd have done the same."

"Who?" Beth asked Tara. She couldn't bring herself to ask the rest. She barely got that one word out. Cold, stark fear was creeping through her veins like ice water. Someone was dead and she dreaded hearing the answer.

"Eugene and Rosita," came Tara's reply.

Daryl looked from one woman to the other. "Anyone else?" he asked.

Tara shook her head. "I don't know. I didn't see anyone else. I came right here."

Daryl's attention returned to the stranger. "First, you're going to tell me who you are," Daryl told him. "And then you're going to tell me what the hell you're doing here."

The man answered one of the questions right off. "My name is Greyson Kincade. Just Grey."

After the succinct introduction, Daryl said, "I saw military helicopters earlier. What the hell is going on?"

"That's just what it is. The military."

"What are they doing?"

"Cleaning up would be my guess."

"You mean you don't know?"

"I'm not here because of them. And I didn't come with them. I'm assuming that those soldiers aren't working for the American people anymore. They're likely working for a group of men whose own interests come before anyone else's."

"That still doesn't answer my second question," Daryl went on. "What are you doing here?"

"I was sent to find the man behind all this."

That surprised them all.

"Does that mean you know why this all happened in the first place?" Daryl asked.

"I do know the whys. And the hows," Grey replied grimly. "But you're not going to like the answers."

"I already figured that out," Daryl growled softly. "But we've been living this mess for a long time now. I think we deserve some answers."

Tara was wringing her hands. "What about Eugene and Rosita?" Both men turned toward her.

"You're right," Daryl said. "Answers can wait. Right now we need to know what happened out there, and we need to find out if everyone else is safe." He looked at Grey. "We'll go together." To Tara and Beth he said, "You both stay here where it's safe."

Safe? Beth didn't know if there was any place that was safe. Especially now that there was the army and a murderer to think about, too.

The two men weren't gone long. They confirmed what Tara had reported. Eugene and Rosita had been bludgeoned and stabbed to death. Brutally. It looked like Eugene had died trying to protect Rosita. Whoever had been responsible for the murders didn't even bother to hide the bodies. But they had taken the time to make sure they wouldn't come back as walkers.

"Did you see anyone else?" Beth asked. For all they knew, other people had been murdered, too. She paced the room as she grew more agitated. They should have run into _someone_ that could give them answers.

"My guess is that they've gone to get a closer look at whatever the hell is going on out there," Daryl said, trying to calm her.

They had heard distant explosions for some time now, and they had seen churning columns of black smoke billowing up into the sky in at least ten different places on the horizon.

"Since the cities aren't needed anymore," Grey said as he squinted into the distance. "They may have decided to level them so that the staggers- so the walkers don't have a place to hide."

"But there are still _living_ people hiding out in the cities," Beth said.

"Not for long," Grey commented grimly. "As bad as things are, the military, whoever they're working for, has probably been given orders to use whatever force it deems necessary to get the situation under control."

"What's it like out there?" Daryl wanted to know. "In other places?"

"It's pretty much the same everywhere," Grey answered him. "I haven't run into anything any different. Last I heard, this was worldwide, and that was some time ago."

Beth was aware of the warmth and the light suddenly filling the room as the sun came out from behind the clouds. It set up a chain reaction. Neurons fired and a patch of memory flooded her brain.

She spun around. "I know you," she said to Grey. "There was a book written about you."

Greyson Kincade nodded. "Blood Scourge: Project Deadrise," he acknowledged. "And if you read Blood Storm, then you know what the army did there. It looks like that's about to happen here, too."

"I was reading it when- " Her voice trailed off and for a moment she slipped back into helpless confusion. "I don't know how the book ended. I don't think I finished it."

She looked up again with a frown marring her face. "I remember now," she said as another fragment of memory sifted through the darkness. "You were sent with a special team to find the man behind all this. But why are you _here_?"

"I came to warn you about what's about to happen. Because it _is_ like the books."

"Then we're in _more_ danger?" Beth asked but she already knew the answer. Thanks to human greed and corruption, things had gotten out of hand and this plague had spread like an out-of-control wildfire. And fear made people do crazy things.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Daryl asked, confused now himself. "Just what was the book about?"

"It was about- zombies," Beth replied.

"Zombies, huh," Daryl said with a soft snort.

"Strange coincidence, isn't it?" Grey commented.

"It's strange all right," Daryl answered him back.

"But, hey, the world is full of stranger things," Grey observed next.

Daryl agreed but he remained silent.

One corner of Grey's mouth drew back into a slightly ironic smile. One dimple deepened. "I was on a mission," he said. "That's, uh," he glanced at Beth. "Been changing."

Daryl frowned at the silent exchange between the two of them.

Beth came right out and reassured him, "He's one of the good guys, Daryl."

Daryl shifted his gaze back to Grey as Beth added, "I'd trust him with my life, Daryl."

Daryl thought that over and shrugged. "If she says so," was the last thing he had to say about it.

Grey went on to tell them about secret government research and stealth viruses and new species of genetically-altered bacteria capable of acquiring genetic material not only from those viruses, but from human and animal cells as well. It was scary stuff. He also talked about deliberately- contaminated vaccines and Trojan horses and a plot to infect everyone worldwide. About how, in his opinion, it was inevitable that by tampering with the delicate balance of nature, things were destined to eventually go wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

Daryl shook his head as he took it all in, while Beth made a connection between fiction and non-fiction. The real and the unreal.

"You would think the damned things would start dying off," Daryl said. "Is _that_ in your book, too?"

"How do you think they would do that?" Grey asked, curious himself.

"I don't know," Daryl answered, half frustrated. "Their brains are already half decayed, aren't they? Shouldn't they be rotting even more and slowly wasting away, especially in the hot weather. And what happens when they freeze?" he asked. "What about up North?"

"Up North?" Grey echoed. "I hear they just thaw out again after the cold weather."

It wasn't encouraging.

"Well, we can't wait for something to happen. Or someone to come along and save us," Daryl said. "We're still outnumbered. Badly. It comes down to what it always has. Survival."

Grey agreed. Then he said, "It's time for me to leave you. But think about what I said."

* * *

><p>They were standing behind a stone wall, staring off towards the horizon. There were more intermittent, muffled explosions in the distance. Though the ground shook only faintly, the wall was crumbling in some places.<p>

"This wall's not going to hold much longer," Daryl said.

"I know that," Beth answered him.

"We need to know what we're up against when it does come down." He was still gazing off into the distance as if he was trying to see into some unknown future. He breathed out a humorless laugh. He might as well look into a crystal ball for that.

Beth already knew what Daryl was going to say, so she said it first. "We can't stay here."

"No," Daryl agreed with a sober shake of his head. "We can't stay. It will put everyone in danger. And we can't forget that there is still a murderer out there somewhere. Other lives might be in danger.

"This wall won't even keep the walkers out," he went on as his gaze ran the length of the wall. "They'll eventually find their way through."

"I know that," Beth said wistfully. "But it makes me _feel_ safer."

"You should let me do that."

"I have been."

"Not completely," he reminded her.

Beth already knew what he was thinking.

"Daryl, don't go. Something bad will happen."

"I have to know what's going on." He turned his head and looked down at her. "You'll be all right here till I get back."

"You won't let me go with you, will you?"

He shook his head.

"Where's Rick?" she asked. Surely he wasn't thinking about going alone.

"The hell if I know," Daryl sighed.

They had seen the empty whiskey bottle under a chair on the porch. They knew what it meant. Daryl had no choice but to check things out by himself.

"I don't want you to go," Beth said as she turned to him. "Whatever is happening out there, it isn't good."

Yeah, she was probably right, Daryl thought. Helicopters. Explosions. Those weren't good signs. But you couldn't ignore them. They had to know what they were up against.

"Go with Tara to the attic room and stay there," he told Beth, but the gentleness in his voice belied the order.

She opened her mouth to protest, but he stopped her.

"You're too complicated, Beth. Don't overthink this."

"You're right," she nodded. "I make myself crazy sometimes. What if- " She had been about to say, _what if she never saw him again_, but she couldn't bring herself to say the words.

But because he understood her so completely, he said recklessly, "Then let me give you something to remember."

He gripped her shoulders and ground his mouth down on hers. In the kiss was reflected all the fear and all the uncertainty they were feeling. And all the longing that their hearts were capable of.

"When you've loved someone, you can't ever really lose them completely," Daryl said huskily as he drew back. He kept his head bowed and his forehead pressed against hers. "Remember that. The love we've shared is what matters. Death can't take that away. Not all the death in the world. Trust me, Beth. It lives on. It will stay in every beat of your heart. Forever. It will make you strong," he whispered.

He didn't give her another moment to argue with him, and she didn't have any choice in obeying him, because, without another word, he turned and headed straight for the mist-shrouded woods. Soon he had disappeared completely from sight.

* * *

><p>Maggie had come and told them that Abraham had killed Eugene and Rosita and that he knew she had seen him standing over the bodies with a bloody pipe and a bloody knife and that he would kill her, too, when he found her.<p>

"If we all keep quiet, maybe he won't find us," Maggie said. "Maybe he won't hurt anyone else."

"You know that's not true," Beth told her. "He knows you saw him. He'll look for us. He'll think we're afraid and he'll hurt us even more."

Maggie knew it was the truth, but facing the truth had always made her angry.

Standing in the shadows by the window, Tara was so overcome with fear that she was shaking. "We could have stopped all this," she said.

"No, Tara," Maggie told her. "It was like an accident. No one can tell when an accident is going to happen. They're unexpected. Unpredictable. We can't guard against them."

Tara covered her mouth with her hand. "There was blood everywhere," she said so softly that they could barely catch the words. "And they were so still and white."

"I hate Abraham." Beth burst out suddenly, in part to silence Tara.

"That still won't bring them back," Maggie told her.

Frustrated, Beth said, "I wish Daryl was back."

"He has to take care of other people, too, Beth. You know that. Shhh," Maggie soothed them all. "It's getting dark now."

"It's always darkest before the light," Tara whispered. And then she said, "I know Abraham's out there somewhere. Waiting in the darkness."

"What about everyone else?" Beth asked because she couldn't forget. "Carol will be helpless against Abraham. She can barely walk. What about Judith? And- Where's Glenn?"

"I don't know," Maggie answered her.

"We were in that big house at the end of the street," Maggie said in a very quiet voice. "I had just cut his hair. He had found a baseball hat. You know, like the one he used to wear when I first met him. He put the hat on and smiled at me and I- " her voice broke for a moment. "He looked like the Glenn I used to know. He made me remember how I felt then."

"Did they bury Eugene and Rosita?" Tara asked.

"No. They left them under some lilac bushes," Maggie told them. "I know Rosita liked lilacs. Just like our mo- "

"Don't," Beth cut her off, unable to bear even thinking about it. "Don't say it."

"If Rick wasn't drinking," Maggie went on abstractedly. "Abraham wouldn't be here in the first place. We all know that."

"But they are," Tara said, answering both questions at once.

Rick had allowed Abraham into the group and he either wouldn't or couldn't control him. Rick was more concerned with alcohol than with keeping the group safe.

"Abraham is dangerous," Beth said. "We'll have to do something about him eventually."

"Rick is the only one that can get rid of him," Maggie said. "First, he has to stop drinking to do that. I don't think that he can."

"Well, someone has to do something," Beth went on. "Look what Abraham has already done to us. How many more people have to die because of him? When our uncle was drinking, he- " Beth began.

"Hush," Maggie cut her off abruptly. "Let's not talk about that."

"But not talking about it only makes it worse," Beth argued.

"Maybe he's through," Tara suggested as the darkness settled in around them.

"Men like that don't stop," Beth informed her.

No one contradicted that.

"He wants to silence us," she heard Tara's whisper in the darkness.

"Silence can be a killing thing," Maggie whispered back.

And so, with the very real threat of Abraham looming over their heads, the three women hid in the darkness of the attic, hoping against hope that daylight would come and banish the beasts that inhabited the shadow realm of their nightmares.


	8. Chapter 8

**_Beth and Daryl:  
><em>**

**_Chapter _****_8_**

Morning dawned grey and overcast. In spite of that, Beth was aware of the light as it changed and grew, even behind the ominously dark clouds. Something was about to happen today. She didn't know what it was. She just knew she needed to be prepared.

She had wanted Daryl's voice to waken her from her deep sleep. Maybe with a kiss. But Daryl wasn't back yet. She was alone. Even Maggie and Tara were gone. She had to leave the attic. She couldn't wait any longer.

As she got dressed, she thought about Rick. Maybe if they told him they didn't want to follow him anymore, he would accept that. Maybe. But then would Abraham become more powerful? It seemed to her that he would. If they allowed Abraham full control, would any of them survive? And if Rick gave himself over completely to his weakness, then would he see that he couldn't be a good father and let Judith go for her sake? Because no matter how many issues the adults were mired in, Judith had to be kept safe. So did Carl. They were still children, still innocents. They could not be sacrifices, burnt up on the altar of the sins of the people who were supposed to take care of them. Then all was lost. Utterly. Something would die inside Beth if she abandoned them.

She would talk it over with Maggie and Tara when she found them, but right now Beth had to find Judith to make sure she was safe. Too much time had already passed.

As she laced up her boots, she heard the steady drip, drip, drip of rain outside the window. She had gotten so used to the sound that it was almost a comfort to her. As she got to her feet, however, the dripping suddenly ceased and the room became eerily silent. Beth held her breath. It was as if everything in the world had come to a stop. Everything. There was even a moment of breathless awareness when Beth realized she wasn't alone. She thought she heard, too, the faint, faraway cry of a child.

Then there came a powerful rush of wind that moaned like a restless ghost rattling the glass panes and seeking entry through the window. Electricity crackled as lightning struck something nearby. Thunder shook the very foundation of the house. The rain poured down on the roof again with renewed fury and the dripping resumed.

But Beth came to a sudden standstill at the bottom of the staircase.

"So there you are," Abraham said softly. The familiar red hair and mustache made her stomach clench. His smile promised evil. Absolute, pure evil. "This is our day, Beth. I knew you couldn't stay in that attic forever. I've been waiting for you all night."

She stood her ground. Even though she was feeling fear inside, she didn't want to show it in front of him.

"I know you for what you are," she said, mustering up the courage she needed to face him.

"Whatever that might be, you and me, we can be right together," he told her as he took a step forward.

"You don't know the meaning of the word right."

He let out a low, mocking laugh. "You're _still_ clinging to those damned commandments, I see. Even after all that you've been through."

"I see that you have been busy breaking them," she said. The evidence was all over his shirt which was stained with blood and perspiration.

He looked down and plucked the skin-tight, olive drab T-shirt away from his body. "What this?" He huffed out another mocking breath. "I'll probably break a few more of 'em before the day is over," he said as his gaze lewdly raked her body.

She heard a commotion outside. Wheels. Machinery. Shouts.

"The soldiers are here," Abraham said, enjoying the look of alarm on her face. "They already took Maggie and Tara with them."

"You didn't stop them?"

"It's you I want, Beth."

"I wouldn't let you touch me if you were- "

"Yeah, I already know. The last man on earth. I just might be close to that. Unless Daryl really_ is_ the last man standing." He strode forward a few more aggressive steps, not in a hurry, but more like he wanted to intimidate her, like he wanted to make her react. "I made Rick do what I wanted. Even he couldn't control me. Are you really going to put all your faith in Daryl?"

"Yes," she said, really meaning it. Daryl had stood by her through her worst days.

Abraham gave an exaggerated sigh. "I chose you, Beth. I would think you'd be grateful for that. I would think you'd be flattered."

"Flattered? You're a murderer. You take the lives of innocent people- "

She meant to say more, but suddenly Rick was there, too. The front door banged open and there was Rick standing on the threshold. There was still no sign of Daryl.

"I know what you did," Rick said, his voice hoarse with strong emotion as he faced Abraham. "I know about Eugene and Rosita."

Abraham gave an unconcerned shrug of one shoulder. He even grinned as if the situation was to his liking.

"I've been drinking until I pass out," Rick went on. "I know that. Then you come along. Someone who is out of control. Someone who doesn't give a damn about consequences or about anyone else, who doesn't care about doing the right thing." He pressed his hand tightly against his chest. "I admit that my burden became too heavy and that I couldn't carry it anymore. I was lost in the darkness for a long time. But _you_ have no excuse for what you've done. I'm going to find my way back, _fight_ my way back to the beginning again. That's who I really am."

Beth heard the voice of a single songbird as a glimmer of sunlight swept through the forest, even though it was still raining. The sunlight and the birdsong filled all the dream, a contrast to the violent scene about to be enacted before her.

The air was filled with tension as Rick and Abraham faced each other.

"I'm calling the shots now," Abraham said. "Because you're too weak to lead this group, Rick. You should have gotten rid of me a long time ago. You let me loose. Just like a genie out of a bottle. And you know there's no putting me back now. No matter how many wishes you might make."

Rick asked one single, heart-felt question. "Why?"

"Why? Because I can. Because everyone who tries to stop me has to pay."

"I'm not going to let you hurt anyone else."

"We both know how close you've been to giving up." Abraham snorted. "You can try to stop me, Rick, but we both know you're going to lose. Face it, you are a failure."

"No," Rick ground out, a measure of his old strength rising to the surface. "You'd like me to believe that."

"You really think you can win?" Abraham taunted. "You? You turned against this group with the choices you made. You couldn't do what you had to do. You're pathetic."

Without warning, Rick lunged. Abraham hit him and he went down. But Rick got up again. After several more brutal punches, both men were bloody, but still focused on each other. Rick got up again and again, but Abraham seemed unstoppable. Then Abraham swung with all his might, this time with a metal bar. Rick went down and stayed down.

Panting over Rick's motionless body, Abraham looked at Beth without lifting his head. His swollen, bloody lips drew back from his teeth in a hideous smile. "Now where were we? Oh, yes. We were discussing how flattered you should be by my feelings towards you."

Beth heard a quick zip, saw Abraham's exposed, fully-engorged member, red hair and all.

He stalked slowly towards her like a deadly predator. "I think about you day and night, you know."

He reached for her but she avoided his grasp. He reached again. Her small hands balled into fists and she managed to hold him off temporarily, but her hands came away sticky with blood. She almost gagged at the unpleasant smell of his unwashed body and his foul whiskey breath.

"You know you want me, Beth."

"I . . . want you . . . in hell," she panted.

When she continued to back away from him, he gave a short, humorless grunt, evidence of his growing impatience. "Let's stop playing games," he growled. "Rosita and Eugene couldn't stop me. Rick couldn't. What makes you think you can? You're just prolonging the inevitable."

She searched the room for a weapon she could use against him. There had to be something. She knew she would have to fight him off herself. Rick was still lying motionless on the floor.

Desperate, she grabbed the metal bar that was still wet with Rick's blood. She swung with all her might and it connected with the most prominent part of Abraham's body.

He froze, groaned and wheezed like a walker as he doubled over. His entire body quivered as he cupped his hands gingerly over his deflated, injured sex. Then after an interminable space of strained silence, he threw his head back and howled in agony and rage. A sound that echoed and re-echoed through the house.

He made an effort to straighten up and Beth saw the damage she had done. He hung out there, no longer a threat, but limp, bloody, wounded. Only his face was bloated. With venomous rage. Was his rage the last thing Eugene and Rick had seen? she wondered. If she continued to resist him, she knew his rage would be unleashed on her, too, but she had to fight him off. She would fight him with her dying breath.

"If you want it that way- " he gritted through his lingering agony. "Let me . . . show you the ways . . . that I can destroy you."

He shook himself and straightened a little more. "If I can't have you," he hissed. "I'm definitely not going to let someone else have you."

She not only heard the vehement promise behind his words, she felt it.

A soldier appeared in the doorway behind him, startling her. "We have to take her now and test her," he said.

"Test me for what?" Beth asked. She looked at Abraham and pointed. "He's the one who needs to be stopped." Surely anyone could see that.

"But you're the one who has blood on your hands," the soldier said.

She looked to see that it was true. There was blood there that she hadn't been able to wipe away.

"It's time," the soldier said impatiently. "This place isn't safe anymore."

"Don't worry," Abraham said sarcastically. "You won't be alone. I'll be riding along with you, too."

"You can't stay here," the soldier repeated. "We've been sent to clean these houses out." He looked out the window. "The wagon is here."

"What wagon?" Beth asked.

The soldier looked at her as if she should already know. "The one that carries the dead and the dying."

"What's at the end?" she asked.

"You already know. The concentration camp. Where the people walk around like the living dead."

"Is she _still_ fighting?" another, more authoritative voice asked.

"Yes," Beth whispered passionately, speaking for herself.

She heard a deep sigh. "Hiding in the attic won't work," the new voice said. "You see, I know you read the forbidden words of Ann Frank, too. Such an avid reader." The words were mocking, scornful.

She saw then that the new soldier was wearing a Nazi officer's uniform, which alarmed her even more.

"We'll keep you barely alive," he told her. "It will be like a living death. Then you'll be just as the others are."

Abraham held her down so that she could not move.

"The bacteria has already mutated." The officer was speaking half English, half German now. "Das ist . . . not going to hurt for long. Nein. Nein, don't fight us."

Something shattered outside. Glass.

"Ach. You remember. Kristallnacht. It won't be long now. Are you feeling helpless, fraulein? You should."

"Give him a shot, too," the officer ordered, jerking his head over his shoulder.

"No," Abraham protested, backing away from her.

The officer said cuttingly. "What do you _think_ we do to traitors? Not a one of you can be trusted."

"I don't take orders from you," Abraham said as he struggled. But two soldiers were holding him by the arms and they dragged him out of the house. He was exposed now to the world in more ways than one.

"You forget your place," the officer called out after him and then sighed again as he turned back to Beth. "That is the whole misfortune of mankind. They forget. Did their lack of memory _not_ put hope in their hearts, even as we devised the MKultra program right in the midst of them after the war? And here we are," he said with finality. "Starting all over again until we get it right." His laugh sent a chill through her for it promised so much evil.

A heavy wagon creaked along and came to a stop in front of the house. There were distant shouts. Beth could hear the fear in those voices and it frightened her, too.

She saw then that the wagon was filled with the undead. Even the wheels were made up of writhing corpses, as if its destination was hell. It was surreal. Macabre.

She prayed for help. For Daryl. Daryl would come.

Soldiers reached for her and grabbed her arm. Their nails dug into her skin. The pain was sharp. It hurt and she cried out.

"This will keep you attached to life," one of the soldiers muttered above her. To someone else, he said, "We'll inject poison into her veins and then she'll be half dead, too. Just like the others. But she needs to stop fighting us."

Beth's eyelids were heavy but she forced them halfway open. To her relief and to her surprise she saw that Daryl was there, standing tall, dark and heroic as his fierce gaze searched the room. She knew that he had come for her. That he would protect her. He was a formidable figure with his hard jaw line and the granite grey of his eyes as he assessed the situation. He said no word, but his mouth, she saw, was set in taut lines that promised vengeance.

It all happened so quickly. The soldiers weren't holding her any longer. Daryl had made them go away.

And then Daryl was leaning over her. "It's time, Beth. We gotta go. All hell is breaking loose out there. We need to get you to get to a safe place."

Paralyzed from the drugs now flowing through her veins, she couldn't move. She couldn't speak. She really was like one of the living dead and it filled her with terror.

"I'm alive," she screamed in her brain. "I'm alive."

She heard Daryl ask someone else, "Is she going to be okay?"

But there was another voice. One that was drawing her more strongly. "Come on, Beth. Come on. Wake up."

"Don't give her any more drugs," a disembodied voice reached her. A familiar voice from her childhood. A forceful, angry voice. One that also wanted to protect her. One she tried to hold on to. "She doesn't need any more drugs," she heard repeated.

"Wake up," a closer voice continued to urge her, not giving up on her. "Beth, wake up."


	9. Chapter 9

**_Beth and Daryl:  
><em>**

**_Chapter _****_9_**

"I _said_," he stressed the word. "Don't give her any more drugs. She's _my_ daughter."

Her father's voice.

But how could that be?

"Her hand moved," she heard Maggie say. "I know it did."

Her father's calm voice came again, like sunlight breaking through murky clouds. "She does that from time to time. Close the blinds tighter, would you, Maggie? I think the light hurts her eyes."

"Do you think she can hear us?" Maggie asked.

Her father answered, "It's hard to say."

After a pause, she heard Maggie's voice again. "You heard what that military man said. He was warning us. He didn't have to do that. He said they've been given orders to use whatever force it deems necessary to contain this. What does that mean?"

"Shhh," Hershel soothed. "Don't talk about that any more. In case she _can_ hear us. I don't want her upset."

Then there was silence again. Utter silence. Except for the familiar beeping somewhere nearby.

"What will we do if the power goes out again? This time for good?" Beth heard the underlying fear in Maggie's voice, but she couldn't hold onto the thought.

"Hush, we won't think about that right now," her father said. "We'll get her out of the city. Take her home. I can care for her there. She belongs in her own home," he added.

Beth drifted momentarily, came back with a stronger awareness of her surroundings. It was as if she had been underwater, and she was intermittently breaking the surface, flailing, but getting stronger. There were soft, clean sheets beneath her. And lights overhead. Machinery. The beeping.

Someone, Maggie?, was leaning over her, and a voice was saying quietly, "We're taking you home, Beth."

"Where am I?" she tried to ask, but her words were silent, her question staying confined to her own mind. It was impossible to keep her eyes open, but she kept trying.

She heard Daryl's voice nearby. "I went over her latest test results. I think it would be all right to move her. Of course I can't say this officially, but I think it would be best if you got her out of here."

"My advice to you is to get out of the city, too, as soon as you can," she heard her father say. "If you decide to do that, here's our address. If things are as bad as they say they are- "

"I know," Daryl replied quietly. "I'll think about it."

Despite the blinding light, Beth did manage to open her eyes again. She heard Maggie's gasp, and then Maggie's voice as she said her name. "Beth."

Then Daryl was standing over her blocking out the lights. Daryl in a white coat. Daryl cleanly shaven.

"Daryl," she whispered faintly. "What are you doing here?"

"He's been your doctor, Beth," her father answered her. "All these months."

Confused, she questioned the vision before her. "But it's . . . Daryl."

"Yes. Dr. Daryl Dixon," her father said. "We have to get you out of here, Beth."

_Here_ was obviously a hospital room. But there was a commotion going on out in the hallway. She heard shouts, people running.

"The last thing we want is to be trapped here." It was her father talking again.

She felt the pain of the splinter in her hand again, heard her father say, "We just took the IV out of your hand, Beth. Try to hold still till the bleeding stops."

Breathless and wearing a white lab coat, Glenn rushed into the room. "They're turning people back at the front doors," he told them. "But I know another way out of here. We'll have to go out the back way."

There was a loud whirring sound overhead. "Those are more military helicopters," her father said grimly. "We don't have much time. Do you think we can find a wheelchair somewhere?" he asked someone.

They wrapped Beth in a blanket. There was no time to get her dressed. Strong arms picked her up as her father said, "Just lean into Otis, honey."

"Otis, you're here?" she whispered weakly.

"Of course I'm here for you, Beth."

"Otis. We have to go. _Now_." Even half aware, Beth couldn't help but be alarmed at the urgency in her father's voice now. She had no choice but to let everyone help her. She felt weak as a motherless kitten as she clung to Otis.

They wasted no more time in leaving the hospital room. In the hallway Beth smelled food. A tall rack of lunch trays stood by a wall, forgotten now in the confusion being played out around her.

"This may be your last chance," Hershel said to Daryl and Glenn. "You're welcome to come with us."

It didn't take long for both men to make the decision to go with them. Otis hurried down the hall with Beth in his arms. They all ran, not stopping for anything, amidst screams and shouts and growing panic. Like the parting of the Red Sea, they had to reach safety before the waves came crashing down upon them. With the whir of the helicopter blades overhead like churning chariot wheels, they had a single, fixed destination in mind. The farm.

Combat boots resounded in the hallway as soldiers swarmed out of the elevators. But by then, the heavy double doors at the far end of the hallway had closed behind the small group. They were on the fourth floor so they made their way quickly down the stairs.

"What happened to me?" Beth managed to ask.

"You were in a car accident. You had a severe head trauma and you've been in a coma for two months. But you're going to be fine," Daryl quickly assured her as he hurried down the steps alongside her.

"Judith," she said so softly that no one could make out the word.

"What is she saying?"

"The baby," she whispered.

"She must mean that baby that was brought in here last night."

"The baby's fine, Beth. They took her home already."

"What's happening out there?" she wanted to know. Even in her half-confused state, she knew that something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

"It won't do us any good to sugarcoat it, Beth," Otis said. "There's a sickness going around. The dead are coming back to life and this may be our last chance to get out of the city."

She remembered then. The accident. Her fault. She'd insisted they go to the mall that day. She'd been arguing, unreasonable, unfair to her mother. The last thing she remembered was seeing her mother lying still and slumped against the steering wheel, blood dripping from her face, the jagged end of a bone protruding from her arm.

"Where's Mom," she asked though she was terrified to hear the answer. "It was my fault," she said tearfully as grief suddenly and unsparingly washed over her like a tidal wave.

"No, Beth. No," her father said adamantly. "It was a drunken driver who ran you off the road. You had no control over that."

"Your mother's fine, darlin'," Otis told her, breathing heavily as he stopped at the bottom of the last flight of steps. "She's waiting at the farm for you."

The farm. Home. Her family waiting for her.

They pushed the heavy doors open. As soon as they stepped outside, sunlight washed over them, clean and fresh and hopeful in spite of the chaos all around them.

They ran through the parking lot. Other cars were leaving and no one was stopping them. At least not in this parking lot. But that would probably change. Soldiers were setting up road blocks not far away from them. They hurried through the rows of cars. Soon Otis was driving the family's SUV while Beth was being supported in the middle seat by her father on one side and Daryl on the other.

To keep her from being jostled around by Otis' erratic driving, Daryl put his arms around her and gathered her close to him. To Beth, he said, "I didn't come with you this far to lose you now."

Out of nowhere a helicopter dropped out of the sky and swooped dangerously close to the road. The noise of the blades and the engines was deafening. Maggie screamed. Otis swerved, barely able to keep the car on the road. The helicopter streaked overhead, leaving a churning trail of black smoke behind it. It kept falling. Everyone that could turn around in their seats looked behind them to see the helicopter crash into the open field in front of the hospital. Luckily, it did not burst into flames like helicopters always seemed to do in the movies.

A police car with sirens blaring and lights flashing sped by them.

"Am I still dreaming?" Beth asked. It was almost too much for her to take in.

"I wish we were all dreaming," her father answered her. "But we're not."

"Is it true then?" Beth asked. "About the dead coming back to life?"

"Don't worry about that right now. I'm sure they'll have this under control in no time," her father assured her.

"They won't," Beth whispered against Daryl's white coat. "This is only the beginning."

END


End file.
